The Island’s Red Herring: Sri Lanka’s Sham Transitional Justice Process After 2009

Since the end of the armed conflict in 2009, Sri Lanka’s government has engaged in a process of quasicompliance - a carefully crafted smokescreen of accountability that masks the state’s efforts to entrench impunity for its war crimes, crimes against humanity and gross violations of human rights. Successive governments have established toothless commissions and symbolic reforms to claim progress while in practice, obstructing investigations and shielding Sri Lanka’s war criminals. Through analyzing these commissions, resolutions and symbolic reforms, this paper argues that Sri Lanka’s failure to implement a meaningful transitional justice process was caused by a lack of political will from the Sri Lankan state, impunity given to the growing military by the government and the Sinhala majority population, the limitations of international mechanisms and inadequate pressure from the international community. This paper culminates by reiterating the need for sustained international pressure and impartial transitional justice mechanisms to deliver Tamil victim-survivors and victims justice.